Recently, thinning and miniaturization of a semiconductor device and its package have been increasingly demanded. Therefore, as the semiconductor device and its package, flip chip type semiconductor devices in which a semiconductor element such as a semiconductor chip is mounted (flip chip-connected) on a substrate by means of flip chip bonding have been widely utilized. In such flip chip connection, a semiconductor chip is fixed to a substrate in a form where a circuit face of the semiconductor chip is opposed to an electrode-formed face of the substrate. In such a semiconductor device or the like, there may be a case where the back surface of the semiconductor chip is protected with a protective film to prevent the semiconductor chip from damaging or the like (see, Patent Document 1 to 10).    Patent Document 1: JP-A-2008-166451    Patent Document 2: JP-A-2008-006386    Patent Document 3: JP-A-2007-261035    Patent Document 4: JP-A-2007-250970    Patent Document 5: JP-A-2007-158026    Patent Document 6: JP-A-2004-221169    Patent Document 7: JP-A-2004-214288    Patent Document 8: JP-A-2004-142430    Patent Document 9: JP-A-2004-072108    Patent Document 10: JP-A-2004-063551
However, protecting the back surface of a semiconductor chip with a protective film requires an additional step of attaching a protective film to the back surface of the semiconductor chip obtained in a dicing step. As a result, the number of the processing steps increases and the production cost is thereby increased. The recent tendency toward thinning of semiconductor devices often brings about a problem in that semiconductor chips are damaged in the step of picking up them. Accordingly, until the picking up step, semiconductor wafers and semiconductor chips are required to be reinforced for the purpose of enhancing the mechanical strength thereof.
Moreover, in the produced semiconductor chips and the semiconductor devices produced using the semiconductor chips, hitherto, for the purpose of managing the products or the like, it is required to impart various kinds of information (e.g., literal information such as product numbers and graphical information such as two-dimensional codes) to the products in a visible state.